This brief article addresses the question of whether the Individuals with Disabilities Act or Section 504 and its sister statute, the Americans with Disabilities Act, provides for the liability of special educators and other public school personnel for money damages. The analysis synthesizes the applicable case law under these federal disability…

This article provides a current, comprehensive, and concise overview of the law specific to students with dyslexia in K-12 schools. It consists of (a) an overview of the applicable legal framework, which includes the federal foundation in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, (b) a compact…

The legal dimension of response to intervention (RTI) has been the subject of considerable professional confusion. This brief article addresses the issue in three parts. The first part provides an update of a previous iteration that compared 12 common conceptions, referred to here as the "lore," with an objective synthesis of the…

This short article provides a legal analysis of the Hale et al. white paper on specific learning disabilities identification. The white paper presents a purported consensus of experts that an approach combining response to intervention with severe discrepancy is consistent with the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The analysis…

During the past two decades, scholars, educators, and special interest organizations, including advocacy groups, have critically examined and debated the ethical and legal use of aversive interventions with individuals with disabilities. These interventions comprise a broad spectrum of behavior management techniques including but not at all…

Principals and other educators often have perceptions about key issues in school law that are remarkably wrong. When that is the case, they help reinforce those prevailing perceptions by sharing them with teachers, parents, and other administrators, and by contributing to misguided practices and policies. Where do educators get such…

News reports illustrate controversies between parents and schools in response to student health problems. Today's school nurse is in a pivotal position for the avoidance and resolution of disputes not only by increasing awareness of student health conditions but also by having a working knowledge of legal developments under Section 504 and its…

School leaders are familiar with the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, but they also need to be legally literate about Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. This need is particularly pressing in the wake of significant recent changes in Section 504 as a result of the Americans With Disabilities Amendments Act. This case illustrates the…

As a hybrid between a college or university student and an elementary or secondary school employee, the student teacher is in a special situation. The potential for being a plaintiff (the party who sues), the defendant (the party who is sued), or a third party that is integrally involved in a lawsuit is higher because the bodies of law pertinent…

The article provides a concise and up-to-date synthesis of the published case law where a student teacher was the plaintiff, or suing party, and the defendant was an institution of higher education and/or the cooperating local school district. There were 28 of these court decisions, and the outcomes favored the defendant institutions in 23 of them…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the legal knowledge of Pennsylvania superintendents regarding summative teacher evaluation and to determine whether their knowledge level was adequate. Pennsylvania was selected for this state-wide study of superintendent's legal knowledge of teacher evaluation for two reasons. First, Pennsylvania…

Uses random sample of reported court decisions to determine whether there is significant difference between the overall outcomes of education litigation from mid-1970s and that from mid-1990s. Finds that the only significant difference between two time periods was the "suits by students" category and that the direction of this difference…

Onomastics, the study of names, may serve to predict the odds of certain individuals to become a party to, and even for the eventual outcome of, litigation. Examples supporting the predictive qualities of onomastics are cited. (MLF)

Recent case law within and outside the school context has revised or refined various concepts concerning eligibility and other K-12 issues under Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Ten case lessons are described in this paper, seven of which are: (1) The frame of reference for determining "substantially limits" in…

A superintendent's decision to stop presentation of a high school play was upheld by the court over a challenge that the students' First Amendment right of expression had been unconstitutionally abridged. The case has implications for other cases involving student First Amendment claims. (MLF)